Kiki Smith (American, born Germany, 1954) is one of the most influential artists of her generation. Over twenty years ago, her sculpture reintroduced the figure as an important realm of artistic investigation and discovery. She is also among the leading contemporary artists working in printmaking, a medium she began exploring in 1980 and has been engaged with consistently since 1990.
Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things comprises more than 150 prints, books, and multiples and is the first New York museum survey of her printed art.
Smith’s experimental nature has stretched the printmaking medium in exciting new ways. She has produced a body of work that ranges from the unique and handmade to the mass-produced and digital. A great enthusiast for the collaborative approach of the printshop, an environment not unlike that of a sculpture foundry, Smith has worked with printers and publishers around the world, taking full advantage of the expertise each has to offer as she explores her humanist themes of the enduring yet fragile nature of life. The exhibition is arranged around such topics as anatomy, self-portraiture, nature, and feminine contexts to illuminate the thematic threads that unite Smith’s work.
Organized by Wendy Weitman, Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books.
